Clocks · Longcase clock
Automata longcase clock by Mortimore, Dartmouth, c. 1795
- Maker / attribution
- Mortimore (maker)
- Date
- c. 1795
- Historical period
- Precision & Scientific Horology (1750 – 1850)
- Country of origin
- England
- Place
- Dartmouth
- Object type
- Longcase clock
- Materials / technique
- mahogany, ebony
- Dimensions
- Height 6 ft 9 in (206 cm)
- Stock no.
- Product 447
- Credit line
- Dealer listing, P A Oxley (product 447)
- Catalogue title (original)
- Rare Automata Longcase Clock by Mortimore of Dartmouth (English)
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Record summary
Catalogued by P A Oxley (dealer), Wiltshire (stock number Product 447), this is a longcase clock by Mortimore, made in Dartmouth, England, dated c. 1795. The Atlas places it in the Precision & Scientific Horology period (1750 – 1850) of its Clocks collection. Materials and techniques recorded by the source: mahogany, ebony. Recorded dimensions: Height 6 ft 9 in (206 cm). The record is illustrated with 5 photographs.
Assembled from the source record's structured fields. Dates and attributions are given as the source states them; where a field is missing the Atlas leaves it blank rather than estimating.
Catalogue description
Dealer description — P A Oxley
An extremely desirable and small West Country mahogany longcase clock with rare Adam & Eve Automata and original makers label inside the trunk door. The 8 day duration movement striking the hours on a bell and with an arched white dial displaying a Roman chapter ring, seconds, blued steel matching hands and the makers name and place of work above number VI. The arch depicting an automata from the moment when Eve offers Adam the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden. Eves right arm moves up and down as the clock ticks. The arch is also painted with wild animals which include a lion, an elephant, sheep, stag, a bull and a horse. Also with strawberries, flowers and foliage to the four corners. The beautifully coloured mahogany veneered case with boxwood and ebony inlay throughout and a long trunk door. The hood also with gilt wooden capitals, a boxwood and ebony banding to the arched top and inspections windows to both sides. The base with similar veneers and inlay and bracket shaped feet to the front of the clock. Note: This clock is a rare example and survivor. Combining some rare features on a longcase clock which include the small size of the case, the automata to the arch of the dial and the rare makers label inside the trunk door. Robert Mortimore is listed as working at New Quay, Dartmouth at the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th century. Maker Mortimore of Dartmouth
Historical context
Precision & Scientific Horology (1750 – 1850)
Harrison solves longitude; Mudge invents the lever; Breguet's Paris workshop defines the modern watch.
The age of the deadbeat escapement, compensated pendulums and observatory regulators. Domestic clocks spread through the middle classes: English longcase and bracket clocks, French gilt-bronze mantel clocks, Viennese Biedermeier wall clocks, Black Forest painted-shield clocks, and the first American shelf clocks.
Read the period in the timelineMore clocks from this periodEarlier: Early Modern Horology
Atlas type guide
Longcase (tall-case or grandfather) clocks
The longcase clock was born from two seventeenth-century innovations: Christiaan Huygens's pendulum (1656–57) and the anchor escapement (c. 1670). A long seconds pendulum, nearly a metre long, swings with a small arc, and enclosing it together with the driving weights in a tall wooden case protected the mechanism and created a new piece of furniture. London makers such as Ahasuerus Fromanteel, Thomas Tompion and Joseph Knibb set the pattern.
By the eighteenth century longcase clocks were made throughout Britain, the Netherlands, Scandinavia (the Swedish Mora clock), France (the Comtoise from the Franche-Comté), Germany and colonial America. Eight-day movements with two weights became standard in better clocks; thirty-hour clocks with one weight and a rope or chain were cheaper alternatives.
What to look for
- Winding holes in the dial: two (eight-day, going and striking) or none (thirty-hour, pulled up by a chain).
- Brass dials with applied chapter rings (earlier) versus painted iron 'white' dials (after c. 1770 in Britain).
- Moon-phase arches, date apertures, seconds dials and maker's name on the dial.
- Case woods and style: ebonised, walnut marquetry, lacquer, oak or mahogany; regional styles from London, Lancashire, Scotland or America.
- Whether the movement and dial match the case — 'marriages' are common.
Dating clues
- Square brass dials suggest c. 1670–1720; arched brass dials c. 1715–1790.
- Painted (white) dials were made by Birmingham dial-makers from about 1772.
- Comtoise clocks with repoussé pendulums are mostly nineteenth century.
General guidance written by the Atlas editors about this kind of object. It is not a statement about this particular piece; for that, rely on the source record above and on physical examination.
Read next:Anchor (recoil) escapementDeadbeat escapementAnchor escapement
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